Earth Bound
by okteiviablake
Summary: Octavia Blake lives incarcerated in the Sky Box. Her days are numbered. Until one day, everything changes.


"Mom!"

Octavia shot straight up on the small bed, breathing heavily, her heart pounding. She sighed and passed a hand on her sweaty forehead, remembering their last meeting before they'd taken her away to be floated.

 _I love you, baby. Be strong._

She'd been locked up in the Sky Box, for the crime of being born, for nearly a year. A year had gone by, and the nightmares still came almost every night.

Exhausted and drained, she let her head hang down as she clutched her mother's necklace tightly in her hand. Idly, she wondered what time it was. Sometimes it was all too easy to lose track of time in this place. With no clock and no sun to guide her, she could only tell what time it was by the few meals she was allowed.

She tucked the necklace back under her dark blue jumpsuit – another heirloom from her mother – and blew her long brown hair out of her face. Octavia was trying to recompose herself when she heard the commotion outside her cell door.

Mere moments later, her door opened and a guard came in.

"Prisoner 1-6-7," the guard addressed her. She was nothing but a number to them. Octavia Blake from Factory Station had been reduced to a number. And when the day of her 18th birthday came, she would be floated, just like her mother. "Hold out your right arm."

 _Was this it?_ No, it couldn't be. She still had time. "It's not my time yet. I still have two months."

"Arm. Now."

"Why?" she demanded.

The guard said nothing. He held what looked like a silver wristband in his hands. Octavia tentatively stretched out her arm.

The guard closed it securely around her wrist, and she felt something puncture her skin. She gasped in shock and pain.

Then, he took her by the arm and led her from the cell. "Come on."

Octavia had expected the guards to come get her again for another one of Professor Pike's Earth Skills class. Why they were learning Earth survival skills, she had no idea. What good would it even do her? She was going to be floated in a couple of months. Still, she appreciated the experience, seeing as she'd never been in an actual classroom before.

"Is there another class with Professor Pike?"

"No classes today."

"Where are you taking me then?" she asked, her voice shaking.

No answer.

The guard led her to a line of people formed in the hallway. She recognized some of them from Earth Skills. Other prisoners? They were all wearing the wristbands, too. _What was happening?_

"Okay," another guard said after a smaller group of prisoners arrived. "That's everybody. Let's move."

The guards guided the line of prisoners and took them to the entrance of… a ship?

They were being sent somewhere. The only option became clear. Earth. They were going to Earth. _Oh God! They were going to Earth._ Last they heard, the planet was still soaked in radiation. They were all going to die. Still, Octavia considered the situation. Between being floated or dying of radiation poisoning, she would choose the latter. At least, she would die free.

She boarded the ship and climbed up the ladder to the upper level, found a seat and strapped herself in. A few minutes later, the Dropship began to make rumbling noises as they took off.

The screen on the wall turned itself on and Chancellor Thelonious Jaha appeared.

"Prisoners of the Ark, hear me now," he demanded. "You've been given a second chance, and as your Chancellor, it is my hope that you see this as not just a chance for you, but a chance for all of us, indeed for mankind itself. We have no idea what is waiting for you down there. If the odds of survival were better, we would've sent others. Frankly, we're sending you because your crimes have made you expendable."

"Your dad's a dick, Wells," a boy shouted at the Jaha's son, who was among the prisoners. Octavia couldn't help but agree. The dick in question had executed her mother, after all.

"Those crimes will be forgiven, your records wiped clean," the Chancellor continued. "The drop site had been chosen carefully. Before the last war, Mount Weather was a military base built within a mountain. It was to be stocked with enough non-perishables to sustain three hundred people for up to two years."

A guy named Finn and the two others got out of their seats, the lack of gravity making their bodies float through the ship, free and careless. Octavia, along with others, cheered their bravery, and even their foolishness. They were free, they could do whatever they wanted. The little rebellious spirit that had laid dormant in her, started to awaken.

On screen, Chancellor Jaha continued his speech. "Mount Weather is life. You must locate those supplies immediately. You're responsibility is to stay alive."

Like hell she was going to listen to that son of a bitch. He'd put them on this hunk of metal and sent them to Earth because they were "expendable" and then he goes and gives them orders. She scoffed internally. _Yeah, right!_

Then, it all went sideways. As they broke through the Earth's atmosphere, the Dropship shook fiercely, parts breaking apart, smoke rising, and the guys were thrown violently around. They were in for a rough landing.

When they finally landed, Octavia breathed a sigh of relief. Still breathing, nothing broken. Though, she couldn't say the same for the two guys who'd followed Finn out of their seats. Their bodies lay mangled on the floor.

Octavia got out of her seat, and was climbing down the ladder when she saw a blonde girl rushing down from another ladder and ordering, "Stop! The air could be toxic."

"If the air's toxic, we're all dead anyway," a voice replied.

A voice she hadn't heard in nearly a year. "Bellamy?"

Her brother turned around slowly and their eyes met. Her eyes burned with unshed tears. Her big brother. Bell was here. They hadn't seen in each other in so long, not since she'd been arrested on Unity Day. _That damned Masquerade Dance._

"My God… Look how big you are," Bellamy said in wonder.

And then, her eyes landed on his clothes. "What the hell are you wearing? A _guard's_ uniform?"

Was he out of his mind? Had he forgotten everything the guards had done to their family? To their mother?

"I borrowed it to get on the Dropship. Someone's got to keep an eye on you," he explained, a smile playing on his lips. Octavia smiled back.

"Where's your wristband?" the blonde girl inquired.

Octavia turned to her, impatiently. "Do you mind? I haven't seen my brother in a year."

"No one has a brother," a boy cried out from the crowd.

"That's Octavia Blake," she heard a girl say. "The girl they found hidden in the floor."

It was all she'd ever be known as. She lost her temper, anger burning deep inside her. She moved to attack the girl who'd spoke, but Bellamy grabbed her arm and pulled her back. "Octavia! Octavia, no. Let's give them something else to remember you by."

Octavia shook him off, still fuming. "Yeah? Like what?"

"Like being the first person on the ground in a hundred years."

She smiled at her brother and they both turned toward the big metal door. Bellamy pulled the lever and opened it.

As the door opened, they were all blinded by the sudden light from the exterior. Octavia took a couple sensitive steps forward.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, absorbing everything. The fresh air, the scent of the wild flowers, the feeling of the sun on her skin… So this is what freedom felt like.

Smiling, Octavia walked slowly down the ramp of the Dropship. When she reached the end, she hesitated for a second, before jumping with both feet onto the ground.

Throwing her arms up, she bellowed, "We're back, bitches!"

Everybody came rushing out of the Dropship, yipping and screaming with joy.

Bellamy put his arm around her, smiling widely and she pushed him away playfully.

She was free.

And she couldn't wait to start her new life.


End file.
